Thanks for all the recent comments. Some more detailed and specific examples would help us better understand the need and benefit.

Also note that it's easy to add an activity to serve as the "umbrella" for all the activities that you'd like grouped together. The event would have a list of all the activities (with links to them), and each activity would have the name of the "umbrella" event with its link.

If the activities are educational in nature (a group of seminars or clinics), it would best best to group them under a course.

This is a feature that is needed to improve management of multiple activities. It should be a higher priority

This really needs to be a higher priority to keep up with the evolving way activities are being developed.

I also see this as a low priority.

We really needs this to be able to nest our individual trips during our annual coastal event. This will allow us to stay within the Mountaineer website system rather than having a mishmash of platforms.

I would like to have the ability to set up an Event (such as Surf Zone and Beyond) that has the capability to embed Activities (such as individual coastal paddles) and Clinics (such as Surf Clinics) within it. This will allow Mountaineers to set up one Event that has multiple functions: Activities, Clinics and Social time, all mixed together. There is not currently a model for this.

Would love to have something like this category as I like to do car camping plus day hiking and also have a beach house on the Peninsula which is a great weekend base camp for snowshoeing and hiking outings.

There has been close to a dozen hours dedicated to this issue bythe Tacoma Branch and LDM. There are a number of policy concerns that - thus far - have led the Branch and the Tacoma Hiking Committee to reject the idea as its own "Activity." In sum, people can search for "Car" "car camping" "camping" or any other term they'd like to when looking at activities. Secondly, they can list "car camping" as social events on calendars and treat them as such, rather than "Activities" which are managed with a roster and then closed out by the leader.

Here is a summary of the concerns of committee and branch leaders thus far, as itemized by the Tacoma Branch Council, with comments inserted by the LDM. Again - these policy concerns originate from Board policies that have existed for years and are in no way "new." One Committee Chair-person even pointed out that "car camping" is not a "human-powered" activity, which is the language used in our Activities policy.

1. A completely new activity that is not offered within The Mountaineers must be approved by the Managing Committee, made up of branch chairs. If the activity is already offered, the organizers should investigate how other committees are organized within The Mountaineers for their new activity at the branch. Currently, car camping is not offered as such by any branch.

2. The branch council has responsibility to vet the organizers plans and technical knowledge to successfully offer this new activity within the branch. Board policy requires the committee to:
• Have a written process for approving leaders.
• Have a written process for reviewing leader performance concerns and taking corrective action, including removing someone from the leaders’ list if necessary.

3. "Car Camping" as an "Activity:" "Car camping," as envisioned by the volunteer who has proposed it, may involve people coming to camp and then staying behind at the campground while other people hiked. There is no parallel situation in the organization where a leader can post an activity and then NOT be present while participants engage with the outdoors. Car camping involves the following issues that present risks: moving vehicles, lost participants (children especially), sleeping arrangements, being unable to close-out a roster if the leader is hiking but those at the campsite go home (or get lost). Therefore, the Tacoma Council felt that...

The council must either assume continuous direct oversight of the activity or delegate oversight to an existing division, provided the volunteer leaders of that division are willing to assume continuing oversight of the new activity.

4. All activities are subject to the board policies on impact (including party size and exceptions). This will be the responsibility of volunteers seeking to organize the new committee. The council does not do the leg work, the committee must take this on.
- Outdoor Ethics
- Club Standards

5. Safety concerns are vetted by branch safety representatives and safety reporting expectations are clearly defined. Incident reports shall be reviewed by the Branch Council for the first year.

6. Each activity involving individuals younger than 18 are subject to the club youth policies. Each adult activity must determine if they will include youth in adult programs and let the branch council know. If youth are included, activities must be designed to align with club policies for youth. We expect this activity to initially be adults only to avoid these complications. You are welcome to review those policies
- Youth Manual
- Youth Participating in Adult Programs

7. Organizers understand that activities must be listed on The Mountaineers' website for registration and all participants have an active signed waiver so that organizational liability insurance covers organized events and leaders. There may be significant discussion and concern about leader liability and how it should be in play with car camping activities. That is a primary reason why we choose to distinguish this activity from car camping associated with other activities like climbing, scrambling, and kayaking. We don't want to increase the burden on leaders of those activities further with new restrictions.

There's not yet a filter in the Find Activities search (https://www.mountaineers.org/explore/activities#b_start=0) that includes "Car Camp." For now the best way to indicate that an activity involves car camping to to include that in the Summary field.

The "Used for..." filter in Find Routes & Places (https://www.mountaineers.org/explore/routes-places#b_start=0) does include it, and activities scheduled for a route/place are in its "Activities" tab.

Only one route/place has "Car Camp" as a use. As you find Routes & Places that are good for car camping, please send an email with the link to them at info@mountaineers.org if they do not have the "Car Camp" use listed.

I understand this was added to the Routes & Places, but unless I'm missing something, that doesn't help when looking at activities. I search hikes (either Backpacking or Day Hikes) and would like to see if any are considered Car Camping. It would help if they specifically mentioned that or in some other way Car Camping could be designated.

Please add car camping as an activity type. Hike leaders informally hold lots of car camps with day hikes and there isn't a good way for them to be searched online. This activity type is also ideal for family activities and the beginning getting started series.